Masahiro Sakurai to end YouTube channel this year, sparking hope for Super Smash Bros. return

Masahiro Sakurai is a legendary game developer who made an interesting pivot into content creation back in August 2022. His journey to share insights into game design on YouTube seems to be reaching its end, however, and that prospect has Super Smash Bros. fans hopeful for a new title. 

In a quiet post to his YouTube channel’s Community tab, the Smash Bros. series creator noted that he is “planning to wrap up” production on his Masahiro Sakurai on Creating Games project at some point in 2024. The channel, which was designed to provide “insightful and easy-to-understand advice about game development” and “help make games around the world a little more fun,” has amassed over one million subscribers and 62 million views across 180 videos produced for English and Japanese audiences.

Since starting this project, Sakurai has shared advice on programming, work ethic, team management, and one of the most detailed looks into game design and philosophy available on the internet—all in a short, highly produced video format. Even with the success of this new endeavor and clear passion for teaching through his years of experience, the end goal for the developer has always been to create more games. 

Two weeks before this announcement, Sakurai released a video titled “Creators Change, Too” that delved into the ways people see themselves changing in the video game industry as they continue to work on projects. He noted that while he doesn’t see anything wrong with developers leaving the industry or looking to create elsewhere, his passion remains in creating games. “As for me, I’m still creating games for the time being,” Sakurai said. 

He also mentions that creating his YouTube channel and sharing his passion in a new way is something new and, in its way, was him refusing to stay put as just a developer. Now with him winding down this project, his full focus will likely be back on creating games—which has fans looking back to Super Smash Bros. 

Smash Ultimate, which launched in December 2018, is the third best-selling title on the Nintendo Switch at 32.44 million units and the biggest video game crossover of all time. Sakurai has gone on record in the past that he doesn’t think a new Smash game will be able to live up to what Ultimate did nor if it would succeed without him helming the project. “If the series were to continue, I have to talk with Nintendo and have a debate on whether it will succeed or not,” Sakurai said in November 2021. 

There has been some recent traction on the Smash Bros. front as amiibo restocks, returning Spirit events, and a relaunch of a Smash Ultimate edition Nintendo Switch model have all happened in the last several months. This, paired with the success of the series and a potential Switch successor console launching later this year, could be pointing to a new Smash title or a potential updated version of Ultimate in the works with or without Sakurai—though the scenario fans want most is the whole Ultimate team reuniting for whatever comes next.